pareidolia
by chokecherries
Summary: Maka Albarn is a dullahan who has literally lost her head, and Soul Eater is her faithful weapon who's also half insane. The immortal life has never been quite so eventful.—soul/maka


**notes: **so i'm writing for soul eater again. it's been almost three years. hella long time, if you ask me. anyway, i hope this hasn't been done before.  
**dedication: **to any of my followers who actually like soul eater. bless you all.  
**disclaimer: **disclaimed

**summary: **Maka Albarn is a dullahan who's literally lost her head, and Soul Eater is her faithful weapon who's also half insane. The immortal life has never been quite so eventful.**  
notes2: **shh, just go with it okay. it gets better. **  
**

(**o**)(**n**)(**e**)

.::.

you'll lose your head if it isn't attached

(_and it makes you wanna know, if in all the stories the truth is really told_)

.

Irish folklore spins stories of many mythological creatures, but there's one that is the most feared of all. A terrifying being who roams the night, seeking out the souls of the soon-to-be-departed. It wields a whip made of a human spines and steals the souls of its victims before disappearing into the darkness again. It carries its disembodied head under its arm and drives a carriage of bones, carried along by a ghostly horse that also appears to be headless.

The creature doesn't like to be seen by anyone other than the future dead, and if you're unfortunate enough to lay eyes on it, the headless rider will either lash your eyes out with its whip or throw a basin of blood on you—both signs that you're among the next to die.

This nightmare is one of the most dreadful beings in Irish folklore—and the thing is, the dullahan is real, and everything about it is true.

.

.

.

Well, mostly true anyway.

The details are a little sketchy, but the creature is real, and her name is Maka Albarn.

Maka isn't actually the horrifying creature the legends portray her to be. In fact, she even used to be human—but that was centuries ago. Or something. The point is, she isn't some monster who can tell when someone's about to die and rushes off to take their soul and send them to their grave. Well, that's sort of true too, but.

Instead, she hunts kishin—also known as sluagh, humans turned demons who kill the innocent and then devour their souls to become stronger. And while she _is _able to sense when a being is about to die, there's some weird catch along with that particular insight. She usually has to be within a five mile radius of them, but the feeling is always there, only not as strong as it would be if she were standing next to them.

She has other powers that the legends don't tell about either. Like the one crazy Dr. Stein calls Soul Perception. Or her wicked scythe-wielding skills.

Maka does not, in fact, possess a whip made of human spines. (Anymore.) Instead, she uses a scythe—who is actually a human that can transform himself into a weapon. His name is Soul Eater Evans, and he is the last death scythe to ever be made.

They've known each other for longer than the span of a human's 'forever' and counting. Soul does the math when he's bored sometimes, okay. Don't judge.

But they've been partners for hundreds of years, and friends for even more. Rumors among the other weapon and meister duos say that the two knew each other while they were both still human. (Correction: Soul has always been human, just not immortal.) Soul hasn't ever really been one for gossip—he just _hears _these things sometimes, alright—but it's right up Liz's alley. And if she wasn't up to no good by meddling in other people's business, then his hair isn't naturally white and his teeth that sharp.

Hint: they _are. _

She only does it because she cares—_and _because she's an immortal teenage girl that's forever stuck at seventeen, so of course she loves juicy information. It gets annoying sometimes, he's not going to lie. But only those closest to them know the truth, and everyone else is just too scared to ask.

Or so he's been told. Maka seems distressed over this fact at times, but Soul couldn't really care less about nosy people being too terrified to pry. It's probably better for everyone that way, honestly. Also, it would throw off his whole 'cool persona' he's built up over the years if he were to have every spindly little meister, weapon, and their second cousins twice removed hanging off of him, hungry for information about his past. He doesn't really like to disclose much about it anyway.

Here are the facts: he's stuck at eighteen for the rest of his immortal life, and Maka is forever seventeen. Like Liz, who is really enthusiastic about never growing old or getting gray hair and wrinkles, and always reminds their group of friends that she and Maka are forever the Dancing Queens.

Soul's not completely sure if she's serious, or if this is just a coping mechanism the blonde uses because technically, she stopped aging back in 1989. The whole 'not growing older' thing can bother people for the first hundred years or so, he knows this from experience. It can be hard to adjust to that type of situation.

("You're actually like forty-two, Liz," he says sometimes.

Her retorts vary but they're usually all along this line, "shut up Soul, you're like, what? Three hundred and frickin' old. Sit down and rest, you're beyond elderly, old man.")

Anyway, it always seems to cheer Maka up, so despite whatever it is to Liz, it's a good thing. His meister and longtime partner needs a lot of cheering up, to be honest. Especially since she doesn't have a head.

Alright, so, she actually does have a head, but she doesn't. It's confusing, he's well aware, but it's true. This is why he doesn't do the whole 'exchanging background stories' thing with everyone. Or anyone, at all, ever. It's more than a little screwed up, and usually not worth the effort.

But.

Maka's head is not actually a sickly rotten cheese color, and her eyes are not small, black, and do not constantly dart around like flies. Her mouth is not contorted into a hideous grin (most of the time, but that's a story for another day), and her head is not the consistency of moldy cheese.

(Dude, that's fucking sick, okay. He almost vomits from the sheer _image _of it in his mind sometimes.)

No, she has rather pale, creamy skin—she always has, it just became worse when she turned immortal—and her eyes are green. Probably the prettiest green he's ever seen, to be honest. Like the sunlight shining on the trees' leaves in the forest. Her eyes are actually rather large, and focused—if he remembers correctly, which he _so does_, because eyes like those are hard to forget.

Then again, he hasn't actually seen them in about a hundred years, give or take.

She has dirty blonde hair which she used to keep pulled up into pigtails, despite being seventeen. Teasing her about them was one of his favorite pastimes, one that he misses. She has a nice smile too, even if she usually hid it under her schooled expression.

There are a lot of speculations about Maka's head, and sometimes when he's bored, he gets on his laptop and reads through them. Mainly because he finds them hilarious after seeing the real thing, which isn't usually terrifying at all. For example, her head is supposed to glow, and because of that she can hold it up and use it like a lantern.

(Which would honestly be a little helpful, because her sense of direction is absolutely deplorable sometimes. They've gotten lost on more than one occasion, hence the whole 'Sleepy Hollow' fiasco.)

She _does _have freakishly good supernatural sight, however, and can see for miles even when it's pitch black outside. That comes in handy, or it _used _to anyway. Maka does not, however, have limited speech. She is able to speak more than once on each journey they take, but she did usually call out the name of the kishin they were after. Soul's kind of taken up that role now, for reasons to be addressed shortly.

Fun fact: Maka is also not the incarnation of some Irish deity, and does not fear gold.

Maka also isn't in possession of her head anymore, because it was stolen from her a little over a century ago due to reasons neither of them (or anyone else) can remember. Soul because he never knew in the first place, and Maka because when her head was taken, so were some of her memories. They've been trying to get it back ever since, but none of their attempts have proved successful so far.

So in short, his meister slash kind-of-best-friend is—actually, seriously—headless, suffers from some amnesia, and can't speak. He's half insane, an immortal almost-adult, and one of the last death scythes known to man.

Life is an adventure.

.

.

.

_tbc_

**end notes:** so this is basically the prologue, okay. the following installments are going to be much, much longer. most likely.


End file.
